Franklin ready to unite Penn State nation

"Me and Billy," as James Franklin said Saturday, worked together at Maryland almost 10 years ago, when both joined the transient road of football coaches.

MARK WOGENRICH

"Me and Billy," as James Franklin said Saturday, worked together at Maryland almost 10 years ago, when both joined the transient road of football coaches.

They hit it off, lived in the same neighborhood, their wives became friends. After the 2004 season, they moved on again: Bill O'Brien became defensive coordinator at Duke, and Franklin left to coach wide receivers with the Green Bay Packers.

This week, O'Brien and Franklin, Penn State's past and future football coaches, spoke briefly about their former and current employer. Franklin called O'Brien, now with the Houston Texans, a "valuable resource," though joked that O'Brien might be trying to sell Franklin his house.

They have a lot in common, Franklin and O'Brien, besides being head football coaches in Penn State's post-Paterno era. Both achieved more as coaches than players (though Franklin was an all-American quarterback at East Stroudsburg) and climbed the ladder deliberately.

Both were influenced greatly by Ralph Friedgen, their head coach at Maryland in 2004 who helped cultivate their offensive philosophies. Both cultivate loyalty from their players (two Vanderbilt recruits already have committed to Penn State) and say they deliver it in return.

However, Franklin will be a much different football coach at Penn State than O'Brien. For one thing, he appeared to embrace (at Saturday's introductory press conference, at least) the job's many components beyond the locker room and playbook. For another, he doesn't seem to have the NFL crush that carried O'Brien to Houston.

"I thought the world of Bill and told Bill that someday, when the Texans go to the Super Bowl, I expect a couple of tickets," Penn State President Rodney Erickson said. "But I certainly had a sense that Bill had long-term aspirations to NFL head-coaching. We talked about it on various occasions.

"What Coach Franklin is saying about his sort of 'coming-of-age' in college football is very, very important to him. So I have every expectation that James will be at Penn State for a long time."

Both Franklin and O'Brien came to Penn State with NFL experience, though O'Brien's was broader. In 2007, O'Brien made his critical career choice. He left Duke, where he was the offensive coordinator, to become an offensive assistant at New England.

O'Brien took a pay cut — "Some people would call it a gamble," Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz once said — for the opportunity to work in New England. Five years later, owner Robert Kraft and coach Bill Belichick recommended O'Brien to Penn State. "I love that league," O'Brien famously said of the NFL in January 2013.

Franklin indicated a different NFL experience. He worked with Mike Sherman, Brett Favre and Donald Driver in Green Bay in 2005, leaving for Kansas State the following year. Franklin said he learned then that he is a "college guy."

"To me, the NFL was more like a job," Franklin said. "You've got a bunch of great men, you're working with unbelievable people, but you go home at the end of the day and you're done. In college, you're never done. If a kid's homesick at 2 o'clock in the morning, you go get him. It's about relationship development."

At his introduction Saturday, Franklin said the word "unite" six times, promising to unite the former players, the coaches, the university, the community, even the state of Pennsylvania. That was a contrast to O'Brien, who said this last May.

"I'm not the unity coach," O'Brien said. "I'm not the coach of unity. I'm the football coach. It is my job to do the best job I can for the football program as long as I am the head coach here. I'm not the unity coach."

Here, context is important. Franklin spoke on his first day on the job, when everything was new and shiny. O'Brien said that following a Sports Illustrated story critical of his team's medical care following changes in personnel who had worked for Joe Paterno.

O'Brien, like Franklin, enjoyed a certain general popularity early as well and made every effort to connect with the fans and university. On Saturday, Franklin said he would accept every speaking engagement offered, including birthday-party appearances to "blow up balloons." On Sunday, he attended a wrestling match, women's basketball game and women's volleyball banquet at Penn State.

But O'Brien did the same. The day after he was introduced in 2012, O'Brien spoke at a Penn State men's basketball game (his son Michael wore a Silas Redd jersey). O'Brien appeared at Penn State's Dance Marathon, did three weeks on a coaches' bus tour that spring and accepted every speaking invitation for his first year.

At some point, Franklin will face the frustrating moments O'Brien did, but perhaps he'll be better equipped to handle them. In 2010, Franklin made his decisive career choice, leaving Maryland, where he was once was the designated coach-in-waiting, for an opportunity at Vanderbilt.

He arrived to a program that needed leadership both on and off the field. He left with three bowl appearances, two nine-win seasons and a personal vision of 'unity."

"Being at a place like Vanderbilt, where I probably had to wear more hats than any other college football coach in the country, I think that experience is going to help prepare me for this position," Franklin said.